Skelia

Please describe your company and your position there.

At Alpega we developped, maintained and innovated software products for the transportation industry. This with a distributed team headquartered in Brussels. As VP IT I headed the R&D & Product teams in a distributed setup.

For what projects/services did your company hire Skelia, and what were your goals?

Skelia augmented our QA/QC teams with a group of high quality engineers focussing on manual & autimated testing processes. This with the clear goal to improve quality of our software products.

How did you select Skelia and what were the deciding factors?

Via a referral and direct connections in the nearshore area we ended up with Skelia, a mid sized nearshore service company led by west european management. Both were a good fit to our company culture, pragmatism & west european mgt styles.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Skelia plugged in remote manual, automation QA teams into our Alpega QA teamstructure. Alpega QA project managers were in constant contact with tthe Skelia teams and discussed execution & improvements.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

About 15 to 20 fte. Half on automation, half on manual QA and a limited number of QA lead roles.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

Skelia teams in collaboration with Alpega QA teams helped us evolving from chaotic QA processes to a structured, documented QA approach. Based on this we were able to improve the software development quality for our products.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

Pragmatic but structured management style that starts with an intake and as from that a pragmatic plan is set up.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

In the majority of the cases, they deliver what they promise + their pragmatic but structured approach.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Speed of recruiting could be increased but the focus is on more on quality than on qyuantity so I understand.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the R&D director for Indian product development at Televic. We manufacture care communication systems.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We needed to build a server for our new platform.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia developed a server for our new platform, helping to create the solution from scratch. We worked together to design the server architecture.

We have a complete .NET backend that generates workflows and produces the alarms for our products. All of our devices come together in the server architecture.

What is the team composition?

We work with eight people from Skelia including a team lead, QA teammates, a UI designer, and developers.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

One of Skelia's owners contacted our company to have a discussion about a potential partnership. Then, they joined the project.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent around €2 million euros (approximately $2.2 million USD) on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with the most recent team around July 2015, and our contract’s ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’re satisfied with their work. They’re a highly effective team.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

We mostly track their activities in Jira and Confluence where we're able to see how much time they spend on different tasks. They’re open communicators and share their thoughts about potential issues with us. It makes collaboration much easier.

Skelia has a professional approach across the board. When someone a team member left, it was easy for them to find another one to fill the gap. They have a highly competent HR team that makes sure we have all of the necessary resources.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Usually, there’s a gap between outsourced teams and internal teams. We don’t have that with Skelia, which is unique. They’re well integrated, so we work together as one team.

Communication is crucial to an outsourced partnership. Skelia’s communication is fluid, making our discussions easier and more efficient. We don’t have misunderstandings.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They currently focus on .NET, but they may have to broaden their scope.  It could be interesting for them to join embedded software development in addition to .NET projects.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They’re a good partner.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO and co-founder of a company that builds translation software for larger organizations.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We hired them to join our development team.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia works on different tasks. Their involvement has evolved over time. For example, they’ve worked on custom development requests from our clients and bug fixes. For the past two months, they’ve been working on a web-based translation interface. The team is doing frontend development.

What is the team composition?

We work with four teammates including two developers and two QA specialists.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

Somebody in Luxembourg, where we are based, recommended Skelia. We did interviews with the two developers on their team and we were impressed.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent between $160,000–$215,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We began working with Skelia about one year ago. Our contract will be terminated at the end of April 2020.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We’ve been extremely satisfied with their work, both that of the developers and the QA teammates. They are one of the best teams our company has worked with. They provide test-driven development, proper documentation, consistent creation of uni-testing, and consistent refactoring of code when required. 

The team is also able to produce high-quality code. We are a small company and Skelia is used to working with big corporations. So, they actually helped us to improve the overall quality of our operations. We learned a lot from them.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

We assigned them tasks every 2–4 weeks. What was special about Skelia’s team is that they are extremely professional. They understood how to work with deadlines in mind. The team had very strong communication skills, so we had no problem integrating them with our customer success team. They did a good job of informing us of anything that prevented them from coming to work.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We’ve worked with other development companies and it was quite difficult. However, with Skelia, the process was very smooth even though they are an outsourced company. They were really part of our team and were honest.

Are there any areas they could improve?

At one point in time, we wanted to consolidate our teams, moving from four to three companies. We also wanted to scale up at Skelia. When it came to hiring new people with Skelia, we did some interviews. 

However, some of the candidates we met didn’t meet the requirements we had provided in advance. The pre-screening of candidates could’ve been improved, which I talked to them about. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Getting in contact with Skelia, in my experience, will guarantee your success. Their management was very professional and flexible. The team was also very open to discussion and transparency when it came to cost. Their business and pricing models were very good.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I worked at Thomas Cook as Technical Development Manager for teams with developers in Sweden, Ukraine and London. Thomas Cook had approx. 20 million travellers in 2019 worldvide.

For what projects/services did your company hire Skelia?

We decided to scale up with development in Ukraine when it was difficult to find developers in London and Stockholm. Skelia was already used for web development in UK and we decided to start mobile app development in Ukraine with Skelia as partner.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to get 50% of our users to download and use our mobile app on the vacation trip with Thomas Cook. We also wanted to increase number of sold trips, hotel ancillaries and flight seating.

How did you select this vendor?

We had experience from previous Projects with Skelia. So we already had a great collaboration.

Describe the project in detail.

The Project "Companion App" built a mobile app for Android and iOS and it was used by Thomas Cook in UK, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland. The app is still used in all countries except UK. More than 50% of the travellers use the mobile app on the trip. We sell approx 5% of all trips in the app.

What was the team composition?

The team was approx. 20 persons in Stockholm and in Ukraine Skelia had 12 testers and tdevelopers for Android and iOS. Backend deveoplemt, Product owners and management was in Sweden and UK.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

We had a rating of 4.5 in App stores for Android and iOS in 2019. More than 50% of our travelling guests used the app on the vacation with Thomas Cook. We sold 5% of all trips in the app without marketing, the app was focused on "usage on the trip". A lot of persons cntinued to use the app after the trip and booked again.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

We had a great communication with Skelia HR department so the Skelia team was self-driven. We also had senior Tech leads in the team taking care of the scrum master role and leading the local team in Ukraine.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Skelia has a great way to make developers grow in the team and also makes a lot of team activities so the development team was engaged and happy.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Some developers cpuld improve the skill in English language. This is something they already have a plan for.

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm tech manager for two teams at NLTG (Nordic Leisure Travel Group - former Thomas Cook Northern Europe) in the Travel Industry. Both teams are focused on developing and maintaining systems to support yielding and handling prices.

For what projects/services did your company hire Skelia?

Quickly scale up teams. We have several project that are of high priority that we want to develop and this was one solution to manage that.

What were your goals for this project?

Development of a system for yielding flights and hotels. The system allows the business to adjust prices and also automatically adjust flight prices depending on different rules.

How did you select this vendor?

Our owner in UK had already worked with Skelia for several years and the connection had already been made. We needed to scale up and suggestions was to involve Skelia in that part.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Develop system for yielding prices for hotel and flights. The solution was developed in AngularJS, C#, SQL and RabbitMQ.

What was the team composition?

Three senior full stack developer and one QA. The Skelia team was also responsible for the scrum master role in that team. The team worked tightly together with business analyst and application architect from our employees at NLTG.

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

The Skelia team has been part of our team since December 2016 and delivered one big project and some minor projects. Deliveries has been on time and the quality has been good.

They adapted to our ways of working without any problem and has also through the years given us suggestions of improvements. It's been a two way communication which we appreciate. Skelia takes good care of our relationship.

Besides the usual contact there's a yearly performance review together with each member. When we needed new members in the team during the years due to parental leave or when a member was changing to another of our Skelia teams the recruitment of new members went very smooth. Good pre check of skills and we never had to turn any of the suggested candidates down.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Self-going but asks questions when in need. Working agile and are quick to adopt changes. We communicated via email, teams/skype, Azure Devops, daily stand ups on teams/skype and weekly planning on teams/skype.

We also visited Skelia in Ukraine as well as Skelia visited us. All communication was in English and we have had no problems in our communication.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They are very professional and are always interested in understanding the problem that we are solving. Asks good questions to understand the small and big picture. Also making suggestions of improvements or alternative solutions.

Are there any areas for improvement?

No, there’s nothing that I can think of.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the operations manager for the nearshore operations at RealDolmen, an ICT provider.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We needed help with the managed IT services that we offer to our customers.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Their people are part of the teams that serviced our customers, providing the same managed IT services as our engineers in Belgium, but from the nearshore location. They do server patching, install new services, upgrade services, work on virtualization, and do everything in the cloud-like Azure. They do networking, security, and a whole range of IT related services, also setting up our wireless network.

What is the team composition?

The governance was conducted by Olivia (Chief Human Resources Officer, Skelia) while Maria (Team Leader, Skelia) was responsible for the day-to-day operations. There was a client partner who addressed any issues, a recruitment department,. We also had a resource coordinator that made sure that people were assigned to the different tasks and a process coordinator.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

We were working with them prior to my start on the project. They had the capabilities and had already visited the locations, as well as good experience.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in October 2014 and the work is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They did about 2,000 tasks a month and more than 99.5% of those were on time. I consider that a success. They measured the number of tickets that were handled in the nearshore location and sent to the Belgium location. 70% of those tickets never came back to the Belgium location, which was very good.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management is very good. If we had scope changes or updates, they were always very quick in making a new proposal and handling the decision. We communicate via email, with a ticketing system to track trainings and visits.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They’re very direct and we can talk to them 24/7. When we send an email, we receive an answer very quickly.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing they need to improve. The reason we’re ending our work with them in November is because we’re integrating those services within the group. If we hadn’t become part of a bigger group, we would have stayed working with Skelia.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

No.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a hardware team leader at Agidens, an industrial automation organization.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We needed additional resources for the hardware engineering and design department. We looked for strong technical profiles with a love for hardware engineering.

What was the scope of their involvement?

When we are hired to automate a bridge, for example, we're required to look after the functionalities of the engine. That includes bridge movement, signalization, lighting, etc. To accomplish this engineering task, Skelia provided skilled people to pick the right materials, create the correct designs, and make everything is functioning properly. They also work with process automation so that, for example, bridges are controlled and run via automated systems.

Most of the time, our IT infrastructure is custom-built. Every installation that we get to automate is different than the one before. We're more of an R&D company than a company that alters existing software.

We mostly use C#. We need their team to be constantly available because the breakdown of a structure like this is very expensive. Safety is also extremely important. These installations are placed within public spaces for everyone to access. Implementing safety is thus a very important part of the philosophy that we’re trying to build in our systems.

What is the team composition?

The top layer of the team is primarily developers. The lower layers are proof of concept (POC) engineers that make user interfaces. We have over 15 people working for us and are still looking to expand our business with them.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

Skelia promised us a good recruiting service. The quality of profiles that we were provided via the first selection process was very good. They do some preselection for us and we get profiles that are very suitable for the roles that we ask for. Putting them on our payroll is also very easy because they take care of all the technical stuff. They make sure they have the correct infrastructure, have a proper desk, and have a well-equipped office. They offer a very good service package.

How much have you invested with them?

1,000–1,500 euros ($1090–$1690 USD) per person working for us on top of their wages. The whole project is over $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2017 and the work is ongoing.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

At first, it was an investment when we started with them. We needed to make sure Skelia’s team worked the way we wanted them to. After six months of work, the investment paid off. The people that are working for us are very motivated and hard-working. In electrical design, it easily saves us 30-35%. For development, it saves 10% tops but they significantly improve efficiency. The experience up until now has been very positive.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

I was pleasantly surprised by how good their communication skills are. Their work ethic is very close to ours. It’s very easy to work with them. We started off with email communication. As they grew in numbers, we set up OneNote and we have a SharePoint that we use.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They are very motivated. Skelia does a great job with preselection.

Are there any areas they could improve?

We had to do a lot of training because the profiles we needed were a little different from what they were used to. If they had some way of first installing the lessons learned from other customers that they could have shared, that would be good. However, now they have the experience. Otherwise, it’s been a pleasure to work with them.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the founder of c-Quilibrium, which has developed an enterprise platform used in the financial sector to manage cash supply chains. We’ve created a software methodology that allows banks and cash transport companies to manage and optimize the cash that’s being transported.

Our head office is in Belgium, but we’re expanding towards Latin America, North Africa, and parts of Central and Eastern Europe.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

We were looking for a partner who could independently function as our development department. We were looking to nearshore a reliable company in Belgium who could guarantee a talented team at a reasonable price. We had very long-term ambitions that were becoming impossible to realize within our current climate.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia was tasked with architecting and developing for the application, presentation, and data layers of the software. At the start of the engagement, we’d already been in business for 18 years, so we could provide a lot of information—making it a fluid transition.

The database utilizes SQL Server, and the application and presentation layers are created in .NET and C#. The typical architecture for our UI is based on MVC patterns. We use ASP.NET Razor on the frontend, and parts of our architecture are microkernel-oriented.

What is the team composition?

The team contains one person responsible for all operational account management, an HR manager, and a developer.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

We looked at a few nearshoring companies offering what we called an “extended enterprise role”, meaning that they could set up a specific development team that would work exclusively for us. That would allow us to nurture the supplementary team and guarantee its continuity.

We chose them based on the uniqueness of their model—an extended enterprise model—and the high level of service they provide us.

How much have you invested with them?

It’s been around $220,000 to date, but I think we’re going to expand well beyond that.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with Skelia in January 2018 and it’s an ongoing engagement.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Skelia did a brilliant job of absorbing the required information, collecting all that they needed to know to get started rapidly. They’ve recently ensured that, despite the redevelopment of a core platform feature, we’re still staying 25% below budget. They’re able to deliver according to our projections and estimates.

The first developer that we contracted had three major assets: the maturity and stability we needed to get started, the architectural expertise to be a great leader, and the social skills to build a team around him. This member ended up being the seed of the entire project.

Skelia has taken extremely good care of our relationship with the customers. They’ve also taken very good care of my team. They’ve had excellent insights into the dynamics of how such a team should function.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

The communication has been brilliant. Although my team is located abroad, we immediately discuss any issue that comes up. We’ve developed a clear and open common dictionary to make communication extremely fluid.

In terms of meeting deadlines, they’ve never missed one. Despite their efficiency and punctuality, they don’t compromise quality, either.

We use Jira for project management, as well as Skype and Microsoft Teams. My Belgian team almost has 4–5 hours of direct communication with Skelia’s team per day. It’s like they’re just next door and our interpersonal relationships reflect that. There’s a strong bond that’s grown organically because of the perfect communication.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their high-quality resources, their excellent account management are two distinguishing factors. There’s a difference between what the customer wants and what they need. In light of that, Skelia was diplomatic but effective in defining what we needed and then immediately providing it. That’s an enormous asset: they really understand their customers.

Also, since we work mostly with the developers, we sometimes forget that there’s an HR department taking great care of these guys. They’re not very visible, but they ensure an extreme level of well-being for everyone.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There’s nothing I could mention as an improvement for Skelia. I wish I had engaged them earlier.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the engineering program director for Showpad, a sales enablement tool that’s typically a SaaS solution.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

Our company needed QA testing services. It is hard to find the right talent here in Belgium or even in the US and Poland, where we also have sites.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia deploys QA engineers for manual and automated testing. They originally started only as manual testers, but over time, their services expanded. We wanted our engineers to focus on operations, not testing.

What is the team composition?

Generally, we work with around ten people, but that depends on the workload. Since there a team of remote employees, we work directly with the engineers because there is no management overhead.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

When I started at Showpad, Skelia was already on board as a partner.

How much have you invested in them?

In total, we’ve spent between $50,000–$199,999. We agreed to review the currency rate between Euros and dollars yearly, and based on that, the rate is modified based on the current currency we have. There’s a daily fee per QA engineer, depending on skill and experience.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Skelia began in July 2011.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We work with Skelia because they provide great QA profile candidates and engineers we can’t find in the local market. The selection of those candidates is made in a similar way we do internally. Our team is involved in that discussion and integrate them as if they’re remote employees of Showpad. They’ve become valuable team members to us. The QA testers have their own dedicated email address and have access to all the systems that all of our engineers have, which is highly appreciated by them.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

Skelia’s team is part of our daily stand up meetings. I can’t remember any performance issues with any of the candidates. The team at Skelia is proactive in asking for feedback, visiting every six to nine months for a performance review. They also check to see what our needs are to help us all better align. If there’s a need for extra people, we try to give as much insight as possible so that they can find the right candidates on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The main motivation of working with Skelia wasn’t the cost, but having the right people on board to do the projects we wanted. After several years, they’ve proven that they deliver quality work in the context that we use them.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They ask me that question every six months, and to be honest, we’ve been satisfied with their services. The fact that I can’t come up with anything is significant.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

We’re a small publishing company that exclusively distributes print and visual media created by a public figure. As a contracted project manager, I oversee the company’s ongoing website and mobile app development.

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

The development company that we originally hired to build our mobile app were making careless mistakes on the backend, so we needed to find a reliable developer to fix their errors.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Skelia initiated the process by scanning for problems on the backend. Within a few days, they discovered issues that our other web vendor overlooked for five months. After completing the analysis, they began developing an API to support one of the mobile app’s new features. Two of their .Net developers developed the infrastructure, while another developer scripted the container system to enhance scalability. A junior developer worked on the APIs frontend data integration.  

What is the team composition?

They assigned two alternating project managers and four developers.

How did you come to work with Skelia?

Our business manager was familiar with their owner, so we interviewed them to see if they would be a good fit. Impressed by their transparent business model and technical acuity, we decided to bring them on board.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent about $40,000 to build the API.

What is the status of this engagement?

They started working with us in 2018. The API is complete, but we’re in negotiations for an ongoing contract with Skelia.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

While the API that they implemented on the app isn’t the most complex feature, it is the most reliable. Their work is easily scalable, their code is well-documented, and their repositories are clean.

How did Skelia perform from a project management standpoint?

We only gave them a small amount of time to build the API, so they leveraged their external resources to expand their team. When one project manager was absent, the alternate was able to step in without disrupting the workflow. In addition to holding weekly meetings, they produced deliverables every two weeks to meet the final deadline.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Skelia is comprised of an incredible team of architects, but their greatest strength lies in their transparent business model. They understand the importance of a harmonious business relationship. Their philosophies aligned perfectly with our business goals.

Are there any areas they could improve?

There was an issue with conflicting invoices, but they We had a problem with conflicting invoices, but they cleared it up quickly. The project was too small to notice any other difficulties.

This review was updated by the client on Month DAY, YEAR. The original star ratings were: Overall - 4, Quality - 4, Schedule - 5 Cost - 4, NPS - 5. New content is below:

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

TimelessToday LLC provides a video subscription service. I am the I.T. Manager

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Skelia?

To replace very badly written software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Firstly to replace existing payment system, then add features such as Apple in-app purchase, Chromecast, Google in-app purchase and finally rewrite the application from the ground up.

What is the team dynamic?

The I.T. team in TimelessToday works directly with the Skelia developers (3) to specify, test, and deploy application features

How did you come to work with Skelia?

Recommendation from the TimelessToday CEO

How much have you invested with them?

$220k

What is the status of this engagement?

Current

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

How did your relationship with the vendor evolve?

From an initial contract with one Skelia developer to do remedial work, the project expanded to 3 developers. 

How did Skelia address the challenges that arose?

Skelia spent time with the original development company to understand the applications and architecture. From there they worked with the TimelessToday team to analyze and resolve issues.

Describe the impact this engagement has had on your business.

The software is more stable, outcomes more predictable. 

How was project management handled?

TimelessToday I.T. team were the project managers.

Is there anything that the vendor did well or that you would consider a strength?

Clear thinking and innovative solutions to problems. Also they were not put off by the  bad quality of the original code. They addressed the issues head on.

In what specific areas can they improve?

Better documentation.

What advice do you have for clients with similar needs to yours?

1.    Make sure you have someone  on your team with deep technical knowledge
2.    Work as closely as possible with the developers so that misunderstandings can be avoided early.